my judgment formed after reading and weighing the
arguments of commentators. I meant only to add notes on persons and
things enabling the reader to use the letters for biographical, social,
and historical study. I should have liked to dedicate it by the words
_Boswellianus Boswellianis_. But I found that the difficulties of the
text compelled me to add a word here and there as to the solution of
them which I preferred, or had myself to suggest. Such notes are very
rare, and rather meant as danger signals than critical discussions. I
have followed in the main the chronological arrangement of the letters
adopted by Messrs. Tyrrell and Purser, to whose great work my
obligations are extremely numerous. If, as is the case, I have not
always been able to accept their conclusions, it is none the less true
that their brilliant labours have infinitely lightened my task, and
perhaps made it even possible.

I ought to mention that I have adopted the English mode of dating,
writing, for instance, July and August, though Cicero repudiated the
former and, of course, never heard of the latter. I have also refrained
generally from attempting to represent his Greek by French, partly
because I fear I should have done it ill, and partly because it is not
in him as in an English writer who lards his sentences with French. It
is almost confined to the letters to Atticus, to whom Greek was a second
mother-tongue, and often, I think, is a quotation from him. It does not
really represent Cicero's ordinary style.

One excuse for my boldness in venturing upon the work is the fact that
no complete translation exists in English. Mr. Jeans has published a
brilliant translation of a selection of some of the best of the letters.
But still it is not the whole. The last century versions of Melmoth and
Herbenden have many excellences; but they are not complete either (the
letters to Brutus, for instance, having been discovered since), and
need, at any rate, a somewhat searching revision. Besides, with many
graces of style, they may perhaps prove less attractive now than they
did a century ago. At any rate it is done, and I must bear with what
equanimity nature has given me the strictures of critics, who doubtless
will find, if so minded, many blemishes to set off against, and perhaps
outweigh, any merit my translation may have. I must bear that as well as
I may. But no critic can take from me the days and nights spent in close
communion with Rome's gr